The naming of Kala Bhairava — Shiva Purana 3.8.46-47

These two verses are where the deity is named, and they are the most important pair of lines in the Bhairava literature for anyone who wants to know what the name means rather than what it sounds like. Three names are given, each with its reason attached. Kālarāja, because kālavad rājase — he shines or reigns like time; the verb rāj carries both senses and the pun is the point. Bhairava, from two roots at once: viśvaṃ bhartuṃ samartho'si, 'you are able to bear the universe', from bhṛ, and bhīṣaṇāt, 'because of being terrifying', from bhī. And Kālabhairava, because tvatto bheṣyati kālo'pi — even Kāla will be afraid of you. That double etymology is not a scribe hedging. It is the whole doctrine in one line: the deity whose name means Frightful is named in the same breath as the one who sustains the world, and the tradition has never treated those as two different claims. The later reading of Bhairava as the one who is beyond fear, and who takes fear away, grows directly out of this verse. The Kalabhairava Ashtakam's kāla-kālam (verse 2) is this verse restated as praise: a deity that time is afraid of is a deity standing where time stops.